Campaign Ads

Sitting at her kitchen table in Durham, N.C., a woman who goes by "S." lets out a deep sigh, recalling the first few days of the second Trump administration. Her husband holds her hand; in the background the kids' cartoons are blasting.

Both S. and her husband are immigrants without legal status in the U.S., which is why she's asked NPR to withhold her full name. Their two children are U.S. citizens.

We've all seen a lot of political ads lately. But in battleground states, it's a tsunami. Jack Levis is an independent voter in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which makes him one of the most desirable voters on the planet: "Emails, texts, phone calls, it's in my news feed, it's in social media. In the last two days, I counted, I had 30 spam emails in there all about the election," he said. "It's unbelievable."

Not to mention TV and radio commercials. "Come on, it's everywhere!" he laughed. "Are you kidding me? Ad after ad after ad!"

According to AdImpact, an advertising analytics firm that tracks political advertising, projects a record $10.2 billion will be spent across all races in 2024. This would be an over 13% increase from the $9.02 billion spent in the 2020 elections. With polls indicating a very close Presidential election, the biggest benefactors of this ad spending largesse are the local television stations in seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

A Florida judge extended a temporary restraining order until after the election that blocks the state government from threatening to take legal action against television stations over pro-abortion ads. 

Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the Amendment 4 Right to Abortion Initiative to enshrine abortion in the state constitution, which is on the ballot on Election Day, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and former health department counsel John Wilson, following threats from...

The presidential contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has become a money pit, with the candidates’ campaign committees and associated political action committees combining to raise a whopping $2.5 billion.

The Harris-Walz campaign, hybrid committees, aligned PACs and super PACs have raised an astounding $1.39 billion — including some funds transferred from President Biden’s defunct campaign — in the three months since the 81-year-old commander-in-chief announced July 21 he would end his bid for re-election.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have collectively raised $154 million in the seven biggest battleground states, and while Harris’ fundraising has far surpassed Trump’s overall, the ex-president is within striking distance of her cash haul—or even surpassed it—in a couple of closely watched states where they’re neck-and-neck.

In most states across the country, more people donated to Vice President Kamala Harris than to former president Donald Trump.

Registered voters in suburbs were about twice as likely to give to Harris as to Trump. A vast majority of Trump’s donors under 35 were men. And in the battleground state of Georgia, where Black voters make up one third of the electorate, less than 4 percent of Trump donors were Black.

An initiative called Progress 2028 that purports to be Kamala Harris’ liberal counter to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is actually run by a dark money network supporting former President Donald Trump.

A super PAC engaged in a cynical two-step designed to simultaneously discourage Arab American and Jewish voters by advertising contrasting messages about Vice President Kamala Harris’ Middle East policies is being funded by a dark-money group that is bankrolled by right-wing tech and auto industry billionaire Elon Musk, according to a financial disclosure made public on Tuesday.

Did you just get catfished by a political ad? If you have been scrolling on Facebook or Instagram lately, maybe.



A group called "Progress 2028" has paid for Facebook and Instagram ads that give the impression that they’re promoting Vice President Kamala Harris’ agenda on polarizing issues, including immigration, gun control and hydraulic fracturing aka fracking. But the Harris campaign isn’t behind the ads, and they distort her platform.